The Northern Bank Job: The Heist and How They Got Away With It by Glenn Patterson
If you're not from Ireland, you might’ve missed this: in December 2004, on the cusp of Christmas, £26.5 million was stolen from the Northern Bank headquarters in Belfast city centre. Not through tunnels or balaclava-clad shootouts — no, this was a lot less dramatic.
Two bank employees were held hostage in their homes while their families were threatened, and the next day they were forced to help move bags of cash out of the bank like it was just another Monday. It was, and still is, one of the biggest and most chilling heists in UK and Irish history — and no one has ever been convicted.
Glenn Patterson
In The Northern Bank Job: The Heist and How They Got Away With It, based on his hit BBC podcast ‘Assume Nothing’, the novelist and essayist Patterson investigates not just what happened, but what it means that it happened. And what it means that no one has ever paid for it.
What I liked — and didn’t quite expect — is that this isn’t your typical true crime book. Yes, Patterson walks us through the operation: the logistics, the timeline, the bagloads of cash simply wheeled out the front door. This is the most enjoyable part of the book, with it’s cinematic fast pace.
But this is also less Ocean’s Eleven and more post-conflict ghost story. Patterson is interested in the shadow that this heist casts across the fragile peace of the North of Ireland. This isn't just a robbery.
He’s also a sharp and humane writer — he has a journalist’s instinct for clarity and a novelist’s feel for mood. He captures the eeriness of the event, the strange silence that followed, and the many complexities of the fragile peace process.
Strengths and Weaknesses
There’s a lot to admire here. The research is meticulous, using lots of notes from court cases during the time, and Patterson avoids the trap of sensationalism. He’s especially good on the psychology of the victims — not just the financial angle, but the human one: the fear, the trauma, the awkward silence that follows you back to work after your house has been turned into a hostage scene.
There are also reflections on the Peace Process, the blurred lines between political and criminal violence, and how a post-conflict society tries to heal — or sometimes just forget. Twenty years have passed, and I’d forgotten some of the events detailed here, including the absolute shambles of a trial and the occasional sightings of northern bank notes in the wild.
That said, the book does meander a bit. At times, it strays from the core narrative into adjacent histories and political side streets. While these are interesting in their own right (maybe not if you aren’t from here), they do dilute the pacing. As someone from the north, a lot of the events and players were familiar to me.
It does remind me how utterly dysfunctional this state is, as we lumber on with our with our toothless assembly, never far from a crisis that threatens to blow the whole thing down.
And if you're looking for a big reveal — a smoking gun or a final twist — you won’t find it here. But that’s in keeping with the North itself; some things just aren’t resolved and you wonder if they ever will be.
Verdict
I listened to the audiobook, read by Aidan O’Neill and it worked well, definitely benefitting from having a local voice.
I didn’t know I wanted to listen to a book about a robbery I already half-remembered, but I’m glad I did. The Northern Bank Job isn’t just about money disappearing — it’s about the silences that remain. It’s both a reflective and compelling read that leaves you thinking less about who did it and more about what happens when truth is always just out of reach.
If you’re into true crime that nudges against history, politics, and collective memory, or if you just enjoy writing that’s smart and subtle, give it a go. This isn’t a thriller — it’s something stranger and sadder than that.
Audiobook Seven Hours 45 minutes
Publication Date: May 8, 2025 by Apollo
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